By the Skin and Teeth
by Beguile
Summary: Maybe it's not this guy's fault he's not helping Matt to die. Fisk never did like the easy way out. Just as well, Matt decides, testing his strength against the blanket and failing and not crying don't you dare cry. He never liked the easy way much either.
1. Chapter One

Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: Maybe it's not this guy's fault he's not helping Matt to die. Fisk never did like the easy way out.

Just as well, Matt decides, testing his strength against the blanket and failing and _not crying don't you dare cry_. He never liked the easy way much either.

Spoilers: Inspired by the injuries from _Born Again_.

Timeline: Post-s2.

Author's Notes: Have you ever had a rough week and thought to yourself, "Gee, you know what will cheer me up? Writing a 1000 word, fluffy, one-shot hurt/comfort fic"? And then you sit down and start writing the first of three installments of a fic that's headed towards some very dark places?

Well, that's where I found myself this week.

This fic is inspired by the events of iBorn Again/i where Fisk has basically destroyed Matt's life, and he ends up on the run with pneumonia. This fic is written with the series in mind though and will be less plot, more Matt.

I picked this title out without realizing it's origins are biblical. More than that, they're from the Book of Job, which provides at least some of the basis for Matt's characterization.

Readers, I hope you enjoy this. It has been a rough week here, but I'm doing better, thanks in part to this fic. Thanks, also, to Dichotomy Studios, who helped give this story its teeth. Hope you all enjoy!

* * *

By the Skin and Teeth

Chapter One

The world on fire is static. Cable's out. Senses gone haywire. Matt's hearing runs amok in traffic, playing chicken with oncoming vehicles, avoiding the fuzz of pedestrians in the foreground despite their protests that he _get out of the fucking way what are you blind_.

His mouth and nose are no help. Sinuses are swollen and clogged, hence the poor hearing. But when he does manage to take a breath – and they're getting harder and harder to come by, what with his lungs being caked with gunk – Matt tastes the cold burn of winter. Old snow and slush. Frostbite on his tonsils and liquid nitrogen flowing into his gut.

He has one hand clamped against his ribs: numb. The other pulls at brick walls and alleyways; at concrete steps and cast iron grates. Where is he? Matt stops at the corner to get his bearings. He detaches himself from the panicky, fluttery feeling of shock setting in ( _he's lost too much blood_ ), of struggling for every breath ( _it'll pass, it'll pass, it'll pass_ ), of battling snowdrifts and Christmas shoppers ( _c'mon, Matty_ ); of traffic ( _just a little further_ ) and sirens and the very city he's trying to save ( _move_ ). He gives himself completely to the fight, and it comes automatically despite his murky perception. One foot in front of the other, wait for the traffic light _this time_ , can't afford to get hit again. And then he's dipping into an alleyway towards a hidden entrance.

He's punched a bare hand through the glass without checking for heartbeats. Not like he'll hear them anyways. His ears are full of scratching, scraping, like they're bundled up in wool. They catch the splash of blood drops onto the old hardwood, though, and the faint sound of carol singers but not heartbeats. No heartbeats. Not even his own.

Fogwell's is an oven compared to the outdoors. Matt kicks the door closed behind him. No point in locking it again. Every step carries him further into fire. Frostbite burns through his hands and face and legs and everywhere in between. He rips the ratty scarf from his neck, choking. Chest tight. His next breath of scalding air stays there in his lungs; he has to dig his arm under his ribs to force it out.

Broken ribs jostle under his hand. Blood spurts; Matt hears it. The stab wound, shallow as it may be, squelches from added pressure.

He lands on a punching bag supported by one arm and dwindling strength in both his legs. Fogwell's crashes down on him, and Matt almost lets himself be carried away with the current. To drift into heat and darkness and _death_. But fighting wins. It always wins. He's going to die on his feet.

Releasing his stab wound causes another pop. Warm this time. Cool over his ribs. Frigid once it reaches his hip. Matt runs his hands, sticky with blood, over the leather, imagining a warmth he can't bear and the fight he can't muster. Dad's gloved hands on his cheeks, over his hair; a whisper of _Matty, Matty, Matty_. _I'm right here. Right here, Matty_.

One punch.

 _Matty_.

Two punch.

 _Right here, Matty._

His right arm falls to his side. His left falls flat on the bag, wishing for his father's face in the darkness. For his father to be there with him when he dies. But tears come, and the crying jostles his lungs. And a cough wrecks him, ripping from his abdomen to his lips. His hand is yanked from the memory of his father to the fire and flood and the hardwood floor.

Cold first, then the sound of the door creaking open. Footsteps tread heavily towards him, threatening with every beat to send him back into unconsciousness.

Matt drags his head up. The rest of him is dead weight. But there's someone approaching. Someone dangerous, smelling faintly of gunpowder, leather: Fisk's. One of his anyways. They've been on Matt's tail the whole time. Armed with matches for his apartment, newspapers for his personal life, bankers for his accounts, small-time crooks for stabbing.

 _Get up,_ Matt wills himself. _Get up._ But he's suddenly falling back onto the floor.

The last thing Matt feels is a hand catching his head and a pulse blooming warmly against his cheek.

They have him.

* * *

Car upholstery scrapes against the back of his head. Matt twists, itchy and claustrophobic. Oil, gun metal, and explosives bear down at him from all sides, forcing his breaths to come in shallow bursts and gasps.

A single heartbeat rumbles from the driver's seat, barely audible over the engine.

Matt rolls to his left, unable to catch a groan before it leaves him. And being that's the last of his breaths, he rolls back. He breathes through the tickle-scrape in the back of his throat to keep from coughing. The pain is excruciating, joined by body's other grievances. Bloody knuckles, the stab wound on his right side, the broken ribs just below; his left shoulder, the one he's been sleeping on, curled up on the frozen earth or in the corner of abandoned houses - _that shoulder_ locks up in the joint.

But the van comes to a stop and Matt finds himself making a move for the back without thinking. Gunmetal nipping at him; explosives jutting into his mouth. The heartbeat in the driver's seat – _why only one? Where are the rest of them? Jesus, did he really get apprehended by one guy?_ – a straight line, unfazed by Matt's getting up and moving or his gripping the handle on the van's back doors.

Traffic light changes. The driver's pulse surges alongside the engine into a hard turn. Left, right, Matt can't tell. He's thrown into the side of the van. Into another coughing fit. Into blackout.

* * *

They're ripping off his clothes.

Matt pounces, fists catching on a mammoth of a human being. A man, well-built, tearing at his coat, his shirts. Pulling against his stiff shoulder and twisting his ribs at an odd angle, and between coughing and hurting, Matt loses the fight.

His senses flood him with useless details – with rotting wood and leaking pipes and one mattress in a large, old room of a place that used to smell like home but now smells like the worst parts of _old_. Of the man handling him, Matt senses little beyond the heavy artillery. Calluses from hand-to-hand combat at which he's currently excelling as he lays Matt down onto a threadbare mattress. Springs rip at Matt's back. His right side fills with white heat and his brain lights up with another coughing fit.

The hands go for his pants. Matt bucks away. He works without breathing – a mistake. A big mistake. He falls off the mattress; chipped tile catches him. He springs back, hacking, rocking, trying so hard to crack open his chest and let the monster in his lungs loose. But then the hands are back. And that voice. Like gravel ripping under a tire, a harsh growl. Telling him to shut up. To take it easy. To stop fighting.

Matt does not shut up. He does not take it easy. He does not stop fighting. He kicks and coughs; he bucks and coughs. He gets a thumb into the guy's eye and a punch to the guy's windpipe, but his head is spinning too fast, too bright. Up is down, right is left. Sounds don't make any sense. Tears run hot down his cheeks. He's tugged back onto the mattress and can't get away again from the hand on his hip or the one on the back of his head, holding him through the worst of it.

Then his pants are gone, replaced with a scratchy blanket. Thin and useless against the chill. Matt kicks it away, but it comes back with another blanket and another, a whole collection of thin, musty blankets, topped off with a coat that smells like blood and sweat and fighting. And then he's pinned down until he stops kicking, until his eyelids are fluttering and it's warm so he sleeps. So he sleeps.

* * *

He flitters in and out of awareness: drawn by thin wheezing, swept away by fingers probing his stab wound. A needle pierces the frayed edges of his skin; cheap thread tugs the hole shut. Antibacterial ointment leaves a hint of saline in his phlegmy mouth. An adhesive bandage gets smoothed over the fresh sutures. Calluses prickle away at Matt's skin.

Fresh dressings wrap around his knuckles, and then his hand is replaced at his side.

Tape snaps. Bones creak. His ribs, the broken ones, fold into place under the pressure. The grinding carries Matt back into unconsciousness.

* * *

He's hoisted onto his knees, a towel flung over his head. Arms pulled tight behind his back. A hand presses down against his scalp to bow his head. He's pinned on bended knee, no way of standing even if he had the strength to.

The arm on his back swings him to the side. Matt tracks hardwood floor, hardwood floor, hardwood floor, then bam. Heat and steam and menthol blast against his face.

He jumps. The hand pushes on his head; the arm digs into his back as it locks even tighter around his limbs. Matt shuts his eyes and yells into the big black abyss, the angry clawing darkness. A basin of hot water and acid steams up through the towel towards his face, urging tears and snot and salvia out of every orifice. He tries not to inhale; fails. He breathes in the deadly air and inside his packed lungs, something gets knocked loose. Suddenly he's hacking, and sputum floods his throat, and he gasps for breath but nothing happens.

His screams turn to choking turn to bucking turn to terror. They're killing him. This is how he dies.

The hand on his head vanishes. Reappears under the towel and hooks into his mouth. Matt bites. The fingers push through it, digging towards his throat. The phlegm breaks. Air fills him. The fingers disappear and go back to his head where they catch Matt as the cough breaks him in two. He snaps and bends and finally hangs, limp, over the pool of menthol water under him.

He doesn't know how long the coughing lasts, how long he's held there. How long until the towel's ripped off. Cold air gnaws at his skin. Matt falls back against a thundering chest, shivering. Shocked from the proximity and the heat of another human being with nothing left to fight back. Too sick, too weak, too tired. He endures being moved with odd gentleness back down onto the mattress, under the mountain of awful blankets.

A damp cloth passes over his face, cleaning off the menthol fumes along with the tears and snot and sweat and phlegm pasted over his skin. Matt tries to follow things. He tries to use his senses, but there's a hand on the back of his neck again, soft this time, rubbing up and down. Coaxing him up until his lips meet the edges of a metal cup. Cold water dribbles into Matt's mouth. He swallows. The hands let him breath for several seconds before giving him more.

Three sips...or four? Matt isn't sure. He loses time. The hand on the back of his neck slips up into his hair. His eyes peel back as if to look. And then he's gone.

* * *

He's catching his breath and suppressing a coughing fit when something's slipped between his lips. Horse pill. Bitter. Matt goes to spit it out, but he's force-fed enough water to swallow. Then a hand clamps over his lips and nose, and that voice is back, scraping across his upper chest to swallow. Just swallow. And the taste is nauseating. Matt's stomach rollicks alongside his diaphragm. Bile splashes at the base of his tongue.

His fingers are slick with sweat, with weakness. They slip over the hand attached to his face up the wrist, the arm, to that voice. That fucking voice. The one cussing and cursing in between _stop_ and _just meds_ and _swallow_. Matt swears he recognizes it for a second, but he can't. He can't figure out what he's hearing. His head's so full and hot and pounding. He can't shake the hand. The pill is dissolving, rank and sour in the back of his throat; his gut heaves to vomit. His chest is screaming for air.

Matt swallows.

The hand disappears.

He's making the sounds of wounded animal. The cough twists his guttural shouts into whines and keens that collect with tears on his flimsy pillow. Distantly, he's aware of a heartbeat moving away from him. His captor, Fisk's guy, the one whose voice is so familiar when played through Matt's stuffy hearing, paces away from the mattress. Unnerved.

Matt snarls through his embarrassment. His voice sounds like an old, whistling kettle to his ears. "Should've…should've left me for dead at Fowell's…you want the easy way out."

But maybe it's not this guy's fault he's not helping Matt to die. Fisk never did like the easy way out.

Just as well, Matt decides, testing his strength against the blanket and failing and _not crying don't you dare cry_. He never liked the easy way much either.

* * *

Happy reading!


	2. Chapter Two

Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Spoilers: Inspired by the injuries from _Born Again_.

Timeline: Post-s2.

Author's Notes: I meant to have the second part to this story posted a while ago, but this chapter went through some serious rewrites prior to posting. Sorry to keep you waiting!

The response to the first chapter was overwhelming. Thank you for your support, Readers. Please, enjoy!

* * *

Chapter Two

The fever curdles Matt's blood: makes it heavy, thick. His nerves run raw under the swell. Screams from his ribs and lungs pulse lazily, diffusing into a thick haze. He barely feels his knuckles amidst the burn.

Perception takes on the same smoggy quality. He's lost his sense of smell completely, and taste is unhelpful, undercut by sputum or sabotaged by dry mouth. His hearing stays firmly in the background because that's just great. Thank goodness he knows about the walls creaking or the wind gusting or the roaches scuttling in the walls instead of the movements of the man holding him captive.

He's always caught by surprise: fingers on his wrist to check for a pulse; an arm around his back, lifting him, when he chokes on breath; knuckles rest lightly on his forehead, gauging his temperature. A disappointed huff follows. Matt tries to give some snide remark, but he just ends up coughing. And then another touch comes out of nowhere, that of a damp rag in front of his mouth, collecting the crap coming out of Matt's goopy lungs.

The guy doesn't say much, and when he does, it's low, so low that Matt can't quite catch it under the scraping in his ears. And the words end up jumbled. Fragmented. Matt asks for clarification again and again, his voice small and tinny, "I don't…I can't…" and then the guy grabs him and puts him through a series of uncomfortable motions, most of which involve him eating or drinking something.

Takes Matt a while to get the words in order, and it takes him even longer to force them out of his searing throat: "You got a name?"

His hearing dawdles on the way back into the room. He misses most of what's been said, "…told you already…couple of times…"

"I don't…" Matt loses his train of thought. Finds it again. "I don't remember…"

"Yeah, I got that." God, that voice. Does it sound familiar or is he imagining things? Matt can't place it, not through a scratching throat and scurrying roaches and wind knocking tree branches against the brick of the house.

A hand appears under his neck, lifting his head slightly. Matt shoves his leaden arms and lands what feels like a significant blow to the guy's chest, but aside for a gruff sigh of irritation and a fuzzy bluster of words ( _fucking would you…_ ), the only thing that happens is more coughing.

(…broken ribs scraping as they curl inwards, claws poised for his lung, oh, God, please, make it stop…)

Matt crushes more tears out of his eyes, sweat from his brow. The room careens on multiple, shifting axes. It's the cloth in front of his mouth that settles him back down, gives him a point of focus. Sounds fall into place for a moment.

But then the cloth disappears and a pill is being pressed into his mouth. Matt squirms out of the way, blocking his mouth with both hands. He gets hold of the tablet. "What is that? What are you…what are you giving me?"

"Antibiotics."

Certainly big enough to be that. Poison doesn't usually come as a horse pill unless it's really going to kill him. "I can take it myself."

A glass of water is shoved into his other hand. "Wouldn't the first couple times. Kept spitting it out."

"I don't remember..."

"Not remembering a lot of things."

"…'member the hand on my face." The prick of a callus on his cheek. The vibrations on his chest, the remnants of a voice his brain isn't picking up telling him _just meds. Just meds_.

And why shouldn't it be? Fisk would want him healthy. He would want to drain the life out of Matt himself.

Matt tosses back the pill. He drinks the water, nearly dropping the glass when he bursts into another coughing fit. His lungs punch themselves into his throat, but the crap inside them sticks around, stubborn.

He hits the pillow on his side. Hands inexplicably empty. A cloth swipes across his mouth. Then the guy is…gone? Or he stays? His footsteps…they reverberate from every direction. Matt knocks his hand off the mattress onto the floor, navigating from the vibrations in his palm.

The air is cold. Goosebumps shoot up his bare arm. A draft? An exit? Matt waits for clarity that never comes. Heat runs circles around the inside of his skull, disorienting him, laying waste to his efforts. He needs to sleep and he needs to fight and he needs to know what the hell is going on and _breathe, just breathe, Matty_ , but the more he does that, the more he's reminded of the cesspool at the bottom of his lungs. The white pain in his ribs. The fact that he can't stand even if he tried.

"Who are you?" he asks breathlessly.

But he is alone. Or he doesn't hear the answer.

Same difference, really.

* * *

Matt wakes briefly, hours later, to discover his blood's thinned up. His fever's down. Breathing is a little easier too, so long as he keeps his head elevated.

He tests the strength in his legs, his arms, his core. The muscles are shaky; they're running on fumes. His skin feels a little too tight against his muscles and prickles when he moves. But a few more hours of sleep, he might be able to get up on his own. Investigate the faint draft he can sense pulsing nearby ( _an exit_ , he's sure of it). And he can put up some kind of resistance, at least until he gets the name and payroll of his captor.

The next round of antibiotics arrives in a rolling barrage of gun powder that he can finally smell again. Matt grabs the capsule and tosses it back, holding strong to the thought that next time he'll be ready. Next time, he'll be on his feet, and there'll be hell to pay.

* * *

The room comes into focus so suddenly Matt thinks he's been moved. The draft reassures him, fixed in his periphery, as do the sharp springs of the mattress cradling him. They seem to _buzz_ against his skin.

It's the fever: no, fever's gone. Nose and mouth are clearing up. He coughs and the phlegm has loosened. His thoughts are wieldy again, as is his hearing; he discovers a heartbeat above him, a few floors away, before he's redirected to those springs. To the pricks and creeping through his muscles.

Something's wrong.

Matt gasps. He reaches for his broken ribs and finds they're simply the worst of it. The pain. It's _everywhere._ His nerves are frayed, sparking with fresh hurt that zips away when he tries to focus. It's there when his calf twitches, shoots up to his neck when he moves to sit up, and comes to circulate in his abdomen as he struggles to breathe under the tightness of it.

He lies very, very still and _burns_ from the strain of not straining, of trying to force a calm he can't feel. Is it frost bite? No, there's no tell-tale scent of dry, flaking skin, and the pain he's feeling runs deeper than exposure could reach. Somewhere in his blood and around it, quiet for now, but only for now. It's gathering strength. It's growing.

The footsteps above him begin to move.

Matt responds in kind: he moves.

And the pain? It moves too. Lapping against his insides, tugging hard on his outside; a sunburn-pink pain that seethes and pulls but never tears. That comes to the verge of ripping but holds, stubbornly, at an agonizing apex. His senses go into a frenzy. Hearing locked on the sound of his own wretched grunting; nose and mouth searching through dislodged sputum for an answer. Where the hell is this coming from? What's happening to him? He reels through possibilities ( _infection? illness? injury? No, no, no. None of that_ ). He reaches for the bandage and tape on his ribs, and a scream looses itself from his mouth from the movement – _the God damn movement._ That's all it takes to get him burning.

A wall catches him. Matt tries to recoil, but the impact causes his knees to buckle and suddenly he's resting on a razor's edge and the pressure is mounting. His muscles are joining the alarm. The draft hits his sweat-drenched skin, scalding him with chill. Instinctively, Matt tries to follow. He starts walking toward it. _His whole body is burning_ but he can't stop, won't stop, needs to get the hell out of there.

The wall sinks its fangs into his back, leaving Matt pinned. This despite the rush of adrenaline from the sound of footsteps descending a creaking staircase. They approach from every direction. Could be one guy or several, and Matt can't even begin to form a defence. He doesn't know where he is. The room is gone beyond the spikes and needles, and when the attack comes, it catches him completely by surprise.

"What did you do?" Matt demands. He swipes again at a touch to his arm. Another scream is coming, forced out by the inferno inside him. Matt gives it shape: "What the hell did you do to me?!"

The voice is a distorted growl through the agony. "I didn't do anything."

"You did this!" Matt grits his teeth and starts swinging, kicking. Landing blow after blow against the guy no matter how much it stings. The room spirals sickeningly around him, cold and prickling with unhelpful noise. He's sick and dizzy and burning and this guy is coming for him. Matt balances himself by locking an arm around his captor's neck and holding on for dear life even though it kills him even though his arm and shoulder and body are screaming for him to stop _._

" _STOP!"_ the guy chokes out.

The elbow to Matt's waist might as well be a blade. He lands shaking on his knees in a pool of his own sweat and tears _in agony_ , demands weakening,but he's still fighting. He's still. fucking. fighting. "What have you been giving me?" His voice tears itself through the chunks of sputum in the back of his throat. Through the spots distorting the blackness in front of his eyes from how shallow his breathing has become. "Those…those pills…"

"They're antibiotics."

"BULLSHIT. Don't lie to me. I can…I can tell…" The guy's heartbeat is a steady thrum. Elevated out of curiosity and alarm but not…not deception. Matt narrows his focus, drawing the sound through the pain running thick under his skin. "I can tell when you're lying."

A hand latches around the back of his head. Matt jerks back, thrashing. Hell or high water or _whatever the fuck is wrong with him; God, it hurts_ \- he's gonna go down fighting. Which he does: straight into a wall, lips pursed to keep from shouting. His arms flailing around while this guy, this God damn tank of a human being, keeps one hand on the back of Matt's head and digs the knuckles of the other into Matt's neck. Checking for a fever. Finding none.

Fingers clasp like tiny daggers into Matt's chin and tug his head _this way_ and _that way_ and everywhere is just more pain.

Fear quietly takes hold of Matt. His heart is only a few beats faster than his captor's. "You don't know, do you. What this shit is doing to me. He didn't…he didn't tell you…"

Fisk just gave an order and this guy followed it. And Matt's probably never going to know what he's been made to take until it – or Fisk – kills him.

The guy's voice is shrapnel on Matt's bare neck and upper chest. "What's wrong with you?"

Matt affords himself a laugh that threatens to transform into a cough, one that'll certainly knock him out cold from the strain. He breathes deliberately through the growing itch inside his chest. "I…am not going…to give you…the satisfaction…"

A hand appears by his stab wound. Matt swats at it, wincing. Tiny shockwaves radiate from where he's been touched and what he's moved, and it's brutal but clarifying. Necessary, even. He focuses up, ripping his senses out of the agonizing quagmire of his body and throwing them headlong towards his assailant. A quick matter of sizing the guy up and searching for weaknesses before he lunges into an attack.

Pain swallows his perception. His senses become muted outside of the agony. He isn't going to take those pills again, and if he must, than this guy is going to hurt more than he does. Matt runs on sheer, stupid will, straight into the guy's chest and back onto the floor with everything he's got left.

* * *

The world comes in short bursts. Hardwood cold under his feet, a chest pressed tightly to him. His shoulder wrenching to accommodate the arm dragging him along. Muttering, cursing. Pain. Lots of pain. Worse than before. His body has reached a full, rolling boil.

Mattress springs cut circles into his legs; Matt recoils. For all the good it does him. He's pinned down, pressed into the hard metal spirals that seem to shoot straight through his back to his chest. The skin holds, agony being the truest friend he's ever known.

* * *

He squirms and shifts, fights when he can, but eventually it's too much. The futility of it. The inescapability. Everywhere he goes, Fisk's guy follows, and when that's not enough, the pain ratchets up to unbelievable levels.

Matt comes back to a pillowcase soaked with sweat and tears, to small sips of warm water, and a smell on the air that makes him want to vomit. No, not again. No more. Anything but that.

His captor's heartbeat is a slow, resigned march. Matt inches away. "You don't…you don't have to do this," he says quietly, leveraging that heartbeat against the man it's powering.

A sigh. "We've been through this."

The guy sounds so committed. They've been through _this_. They've had a prior conversation about Matt's impending demise and this guy's willingness to be complicit in that. Matt presses his head into the pillow, hoping the shooting pain in his neck and scalp will ground him. Vertigo threatens to drag him out of awareness when the pill finally arrives.

The smell grows louder. Matt's stomach twists into a knot. He tenses the muscles through his shoulders and chest and then crumples from the strain. Tears eek out of his eyes. He isn't going to beg. He isn't going to plead. He screws his mouth up tight.

"Don't do this," the guy grumbles.

Matt almost breaks to speak, but he lets the guy plug his nose to smother him into submission.

The pill appears at his lips in anticipation. Matt opens his mouth, heaves his broiling body off the pillow, and bites down the guy's outstretched fingers.

He takes his medicine with a chaser of the guy's blood.

* * *

The burning progresses from first degree to second degree to now, when the hurt is so bad it makes him shake and the shaking makes him hurt and there's no way out of the wild cycle. Coughing knocks him out of meditation. Pain drags him back into his body.

He can't move to defend himself. The pills won't let him. He's firmly in their thrall. When the next one appears at his mouth, Matt puts up the best fight he can, but it's a losing battle against the palm sealing his lips and nose.

Tears stream down past Matt's temples, acidic rivulets against his hypersensitive skin. His arms draw themselves protectively towards his chest before spasming back onto the mattress.

It's the cloth to his face that draws another cry out of him. Matt pulls away and hurts; he gets washed and hurts. He gets shushed - almost kindly - and hurts. The pain is everywhere, always. An unrelenting pulse from his head to his toes, from waking into a fitful sleep.

* * *

Time splits into fragments:

…a dizzying trip off the pillow. The warm metal rim of a cup pressed to his lips, followed by small sips of broth.

…a heartbeat, slow and low, as a cloth drags liquid fire over Matt's neck, shoulders, and face.

…stabbing under his sternum; knuckles hooked under his bone. Another hand on the back of his head. "Cough. C'mon, cough," the guy orders. Matt obeys reluctantly.

…the pill pressing into his lips, then bobbing at the back of his throat before it rips down his esophagus.

(pain)

…the pill…

( _pain_ )

…the God damn pill…

Pain.

* * *

Matt's throat doesn't recognize words anymore. It's more accustomed to keening, to wheezing. Small twinges of noise. Broken sounds for a broken body.

He puts his mouth through the motions: a tap of his front teeth, a flick of his tongue, a press of his lips. Three syllables, barely a whisper. The extra hurt barely registers. But they capture the guy's attention. He draws near. His heart hammers above Matt's, slow at first before gathering speed as the words reach his ear.

The guy's still reeling when Matt tries again, this time sharpening every syllable in an effort to ratchet that pulse to new heights before he kicks off, to share a little of what he's living right now. Through gritted teeth, he says, "Just kill me."

Unbelievable. The guy's pulse goes headlong into righteous indignation. He's _offended_.

"Do it." Matt's jaw twitches, teeth chattering. Nerves blaring. He braves the sting. "Do it, or I'm going to make you. You're…" He coughs weakly, lungs oddly clear. The pain's taken care of his infection. "You're wasting your time and mine with this."

Scrubbing sound: skin against skin. The guy got an itch somewhere deep inside his skull with how hard he's scratching. His heartbeat lowers back to its familiar pace. "Right, you want to die? You can die. This'll kill yah. Open your mouth."

A cold rush of shock runs through Matt. He pulls his senses away frantically from the gathering wail of his central nervous system towards the form sitting next to him on the bed. The one whose voice has strafed a fine line between familiar and foreign, the one with callused trigger fingers; the one who manhandled him and force-fed him and wrestled him away from death's door only to administer the medicine that's going to kill him.

Matt can't breathe. His heart feels wrapped up in a tightening fist. Fear and disbelief and _please, no, God, no_. He's dreaming. He must be dreaming. It's the pain or the pills; he's finally snapped.

"F-f-frank?"

The pill slips easily into his gaping mouth followed by a small splash of water. Matt moves to spit it out; Frank covers his lips and nose easily with one hand. The scab on his index finger, remnants of a bite wound, scalds Matt's cheek.

"Red."

* * *

Happy reading!


	3. Chapter Three

Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Spoilers: Inspired by the injuries from _Born Again_.

Timeline: Post-s2.

Author's Notes: It's been over a month since I posted this, and I finally – _finally_ – got to the comfort parts.

Shockingly, though, the greatest challenge of this fic was actually the relationship between Matt and Frank. I've spent so much time with these two in my other WIP, taking them back to a post-s2 dynamic felt a little like riding a unicycle backwards.

Readers, dear readers, I hope you enjoy this final installment. Thank you for your kind support! Cheers!

* * *

Chapter Three

Water pops and sputters out of the tap. A few errant drops stab into Matt's thigh, searing as they creep across his over-sensitive skin. He moves to brush them away ands ends up gasping. His touch tears a burning canyon into the muscle.

The shower is lukewarm. Nevertheless, when the water seems to go right through his skin, leaving the nerves too tight and screeching over his skeleton. The tub feels red, white, and hot from the agony.

Naturally, he throws the rest of himself under the water too.

Pain obliterates. Matt explodes and takes the whole world with him. There's no smell or taste. No touch beyond heat. He hears animal grunting, coughing, and tortured screaming. This is Bosch's hell, Dante's inferno. Destruction and dismantling and punishment. This is his apartment, gone. His career, burned. His whole life, up in flames. Good riddance. Let it burn. Let it all burn.

And yet.

He smashes a palm against the chipped tile on the wall.

 _And yet…_

Matt wrests his face under the spray of water and lets out a long, silent yell.

He pulls the fire back where it belongs, safely stowed inside of himself, his skin a prison around burning the world doesn't deserve. Careful of the Murdock boys – they got the devil in 'em, and devils just love fire. Gradually, Matt becomes aware of four brick walls and a creaking roof; of a mildew-crusted bathroom and lukewarm water. More than that, of the skin being flayed from his face, neck, and shoulders. From his back and arms when he twists. Every droplet scooping into him, peeling him in strips until he is bloody and raw. Until the devil's clawing at his skeleton for a way out and his groans give way to soft, whimpering pleas.

His last dose was ages ago; he can't still be molten rock and napalm. Unless this is permanent. Those pills cleared his lungs and then lit a fire inside him that won't ever go out, and what luck that his nerves are so strong. They can _burn_ and _burn_ and _burn_.

The porcelain grates his feet, twisting alongside the slow creak of a floorboard. A heartbeat knocks against the door. The spaces between Matt's vertebrae pulse with fresh fire. Shame twists its teeth into his gut. He pulls himself upright under the water and is silently skinned alive.

Footsteps thud across the floor and away from the bathroom, taking the heartbeat with them. The second they fade, Matt rips off the taps. He drops onto the edge of the tub, shaking, and prays that he didn't make a sound.

* * *

The draft beckons his bare feet to start walking; Matt ignores it. He sits on the edge of his mattress, wincing as his flimsy briefs scrape away at his thighs. Springs jutting into his hips and pelvis. The t-shirt he's wearing does nothing against the chill. There's a blanket behind his back; he had it on his shoulders, but the texture ravaged him. The better of two evils, then: cold has a softer bite than fabrics. It soothes the sunburnt tightness of his skin.

Visibility has the harshest bite of all. Frank comes into the room, his usual cloud of gunpowder and leather. Footsteps about as heavy as his heartbeat. Matt winces: from the reverb, from the proximity. He's never been this close to Frank without a mask or his glasses between them, and maintaining composure is a strain. He can't hide without hurting. He can't hurt without hiding.

Frank notices. Of course he notices. Just like he probably noticed all the noise Matt was making in the shower. "Lookin' like hammered shit, Choirboy."

"I'm fine," Matt answers quickly, even though hammered shit is _exactly_ how he feels. Shivers wreck through him like glowing steel being worked over by a blacksmith. He coughs lightly, the crap from his lungs mercifully loose.

Clicks on a dial. A space heater springs to life. Warm air rushes against Matt's side. He glares suspiciously at the source, uncertain of what to make of it.

"Least you're sitting up," Frank notes. He puts distance between himself and the space heater as if he wasn't the one who turned it on. "You get any sleep?"

"Yeah." Plenty of it, too, if sleeping means lying awake with his eyes closed. Aching. Matt eases into the dry warmth filling the room, unable to tell where it ends and his own frail nerves begin. "Did you?"

"Little bit. Lucky to get any with your squirrelly ass. Couldn't get out of bed half the time, but you kept on fighting."

Matt tosses his shoulders a little and forces a smirk onto his face: "What I do best."

That gets a reaction. Frank's heartbeat rises; he twists away from the conversation. "Yeah, well."

The smile fades. Matt's lips tremble. God damn, he doesn't know who he is to Frank anymore. It's a blur: one giant, painful blur of hacking lungs and shredded nerves and _Frank_. Frank taking his temperature, Frank undressing him, Frank holding him down, Frank force-feeding him meds and food. And amidst all that, the certainty that he was being held captive, being tortured, having what little of his life remains taken away from him piece by piece.

"Sorry."

The Punisher drifts past the apology: it's irrelevant. "Side-effects. Figures."

"Those really were antibiotics," Matt concludes.

"Of course, they were antibiotics," Frank snarls. His enraged heart adds an emphatic _fuck you very much_ for thinking otherwise. Then again, that might not be for Matt, what with the way Frank scrubs at his scalp. "You were suffocating. And the shit coming out of you…Jesus, the shit coming out of you…"

The shit Frank _pulled_ out of him. Matt turns his head until the vibrations on Frank's voice can only touch his temple.

"I got the strongest stuff I could find for it – Ciprofloxacin? Cipro?" Matt's never heard of it. Meanwhile, Frank wishes he hadn't. "Cleared up your lungs fast enough. But it turns out...turns out this shit can cause nerve damage."

Matt's skin buzzes with fresh vigour. He lowers his hands towards his waist, testing the movement, trying to pinpoint where the meds ravaged him the worst. They got him everywhere; they're _still_ getting him. "Is it permanent?"

Frank's heartbeat spikes. He hides it well, responding, "It can be, yeah."

 _Can be_. Matt draws a steadying breath and tries to push the words out of his mind, but there they are again, followed by Stick's voice remarking snidely, " _Will be_."

"Makes you injure easy too," Frank adds.

The house chitters between them. Matt tugs at the threads on the mattress, stoking his frayed nerves in his fingers as if this time it will be different. This time the pain will magically disappear. He gives up when the hurt returns as fresh as before.

He opens his mouth to say…something, he isn't even sure what, when Frank interrupts him: "I'm sorry, Red."

Matt doesn't even really hear Frank say it. He answers automatically in a near mumble, "Not your fault."  
"Should've done better research -"

"It's not your fault, Frank," Matt declares, harsher this time. "I should've –"

The sound of Frank's heart gathering to war drum intensity fills the room. "You should've what?"

Matt clams up. There's so much he should've done, shouldn't've done. He failed to anticipate Fisk, let his apartment get burned down, got sick and stabbed and hit by a car, and Frank, rather uncharacteristically, doesn't want to hear a word of it. No excuses, no regrets: Matt got himself into this mess and that mess defines him, only it doesn't seem like Frank's blaming him for any of it. The Punisher is giving him the benefit of the doubt.

"You did what you had to do," Matt says instead, shutting down the fight before it can begin. "You saved me. Thank you."

Frank shakes his head, cussing under his breath. He stalks a tight circle around the room, eager to occupy himself.

Matt gives him something to do. "H-h-how did you find me?"

"Easy." Too easy, by the sounds of things. "Hell's Kitchen ain't all that big, and there's only so many idiots who get themselves stabbed and hit by a car in one night."

The wounds pulse in petty _I told you so_ -s against his ribs. Matt sighs, exhausted. He swivels his aching shoulder as memories of sleeping on the ground come back to him. "And…uh…" the devil refuses to come to his rescue, leaving Matt stammering. "…why…why did you find me?"

Frank's heartrate elevates by degrees and then settles back into that steady line. "You rather I didn't?" he asks, dodging the answer.

Matt doesn't let him get away. He isn't bound to get many more licks on the Punisher and needs to hear this. "Second time you saved my life. Second time you had to work to do it. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you liked me."

"Good thing you know better." Frank shifts his weight from one foot to the other, preparing to leave the room lest his heartbeat run away from him again. When that doesn't work: "I gave you nerve damage."

"The antibiotics gave me nerve damage."

"I gave you the antibiotics."

The territorial edge in Frank's voice is impressive; Matt doesn't let him get away with it. "You didn't know."

"God damn it, Red," Frank scoffs and storms out of the room cussing the whole way, "The hell do they have to do? The hell do people have to do?"

Matt listens to the empty space he leaves behind.

* * *

Sleep is nearly impossible to achieve. Meditation, equally so. Matt's nerves don't let up in their relentless assault on his senses. He counts his breath, but his mind gets snagged on the flickers of pain from his clothing or the twinges of errant drafts on his skin.

He wanders the house, finds it to be exactly what he expects: derelict, forlorn. Aged to the point of decay. Frank's added padlocks to the doors and boarded up windows, the perfect defence against people coming in and, Matt winces, getting out.

The draft he's been sensing comes from what must be the primary point of entry. There are locks, but Matt flips through them easily. He grabs the handle and opens the door a meager crack.

Cold air washes over his face, down his throat, and then he's doubled over, coughing, rattling the door on its squeaky hinges in a struggle to brave the elements. Frank's footsteps thunder from behind; the door slams shut. And then Matt's half-dragged and shoved back onto his mattress with the order, " _Stop making shit worse_."

Matt doesn't bother feigning sleep after that. He works on preparing to leave.

* * *

Frank claps a tin mug of soup into Matt's hand on the way past. There's powder residue from the bouillon on the rim that smells neon yellow from chemicals and preservatives. Relief runs through him, soothing his frayed nerves. Matt blows across the surface of the soup, dispelling the last vestiges of that _pill_ from his brain.

The first sip sparks with an undercurrent of chalk and bitters; discordant notes against the claw of salt on Matt's tongue. He waits for his recognition to bubble into something helpful, but it never does. This is the same stuff Frank's been pouring down his throat for days. A fitting last meal before his escape.

He tries to hide his eagerness, to stop his senses from gripping at the smell of his coat and boots stashed in the corner. He's ripped a strip of blanket to use as a scarf against the cold. Feigning nonchalance, Matt takes another sip. He pads the outside of the mug with his fingers, relishing the warmth even as pain stabs up into his forearms. The mattress springs tug his skin with the twang of a rubber band stretched too far, too tight. He catches himself sputtering from the pressure, caught between the springs and a hot place. Sit there and get stabbed; move and burn.

"Still hurts?" Frank asks.

The response has taken up permanent residence on Matt's tongue: "It's fine."

Frank's apathy is worse than his rage and exponentially harder to stomach. "Fair enough."

For a long time after, the house is the only one talking: bare twigs screeching against window panes, floorboards moaning. It's so strange being on the ground floor, having his hearing constricted to one location. Matt's apartment gave him a full soundscape of the city.

"That how you get around?" Frank asks.

Matt drinks the last of the soup, nodding. He scrapes his lips with his teeth to get rid of the lingering chalkiness. The taste still doesn't come back to him, just fills him with familiarity and calm. "Better than a police scanner." And then, quietly, "I miss it."

The mug disappears from his hand. Matt doesn't know how he was holding it before. His fingers feel thick, and they've gone limp, and if he lets his hearing wander, the sound melt into the nightly grind of Hell's Kitchen. "Guy I used to know…he'd…be happy that it was gone. Said I should have burned my place down years ago, but…" the strength drains out of his mouth. Matt forces himself to continue. He wants to explain. He wants Frank to understand. He wants _someone_ to understand. "…but I wanted…to feel like I was a part of the city. Like I belonged. Even if…even if it was just during the daytime."

Frank's voice has gone just as quiet, if not quieter, than his. "You're not giving up on me, are you, Red?"

Matt shakes his head and the whole room shakes with him. He props a hand up on the mattress. Pain fires up through his palm and then dissolves. "Fisk got me against the ropes." He drives his other hand down into the edge of the mattress and tries to rise. His legs swing freely at the knee, refusing to hold his weight. Matt chuckles lightly despite the knowing fear that _something is not right_. The feelings of being drawn and quartered slipped into the background; the anticipation that the next minute might be his last or, worse, that it might not be, have faded. "I do my best fighting against the ropes. What…?" he falls back. The mattress catches him with fresh fire that quickly cools into smoke. Frank's heartbeat goes from being a murmur at Matt's side to a slow roving bassline, resolute but not without recognition for what he's just done.

Movement blots out the world for several long seconds. Frank's talking some more, his words low and rumbling and nonsense, and when everything comes back into focus, Matt's head is on the pillow. And the blankets are gathered around his waist. And his eyelids are fluttering. They have been for a while, it feels like. The lids are awash with a satisfying hurt when they finally slip closed.

God, he's tired, so immeasurably tired.

His hands end up in a tangle with Frank, who holds them until they loosen from fists, until they drape themselves over the springs that don't seem to hurt anymore. "You fight me on this later," Frank says, his voice oddly reverent before adding, "when you're not against the ropes."

"Is this…is this why you did it?" Matt asks. "So you'd have someone to fight?"

Frank huffs. _Unbelievable._ "Get some sleep, Red."

It's the only answer Matt's going to get. He tries to say more as he drifts.

Knuckles come to rest on his forehead. Matt sinks under the weight. They move to his cheek and he falls there too. His neck is next, and there the knuckles linger until Matt's breathing is slow and deep and even, and the fire is a half-forgotten dream. A hand then smooths over the wounds on his ribs, checking the dressings and tape. The palm runs _too hot_ and then _just right_ and Matt curls away from it on principle, nearly crying with relief when he finally does because _it doesn't hurt anymore._ Not immediately, at least. There's a flicker of something in the back of his mind, but it's more a memory of a memory than anything else.

Slowly, the blankets begin to rise around him, their scratch mollified by how far from focus Matt's drifted, how his senses have diffused. All he notices is the warmth pooling around him. The hand on his shoulder. There a low rumble of thunder against the spine, a storm receding into the distance, even as the heartbeat behind him seems to get bigger and softer, ferrying Matt out of awareness. Watching his back the entire time.

* * *

Happy reading!


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